This tweet from Sergey Galyonkin, marketing director at 1C Multimedia and this blog post have sparked rumors that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is in development at Bethesda Softworks after development of the first-person shooter sequel was frozen following trouble at developer GSC Game World. The Steam Forums (thanks PlayStation Universe) has a translation:

The following info is from a reliable source but isn't official, keep that in mind.

Sergey Grigorovich didn't sell the brand name "STALKER".

Bethesda is going to publish a STALKER game and has all the rights to it.

The game is multiplatform(consoles+PC) and is based on Bethesda technology.

It's being made by a studio familiar with that technology(possibly Obisidian or the Fallout 3 team from Bethesda, but no facts as of yet). It is almost 100% guaranteed that it's not a Ukrainian studio.

Bethesda will be able to buy the brand name from Grigorovich later, but for now all the misc. merchandise is his responsibility.

Release date, engine, detailes - TBA.

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Prez wrote on Jul 31, 2012, 13:12:I can think of far worse ways for the series to go (like the way of the dodo for one), so I am pretty happy with this if it turns out to be true. Fallout New Vegas is a brilliant game, though admittedly Bethesda doesn't have the track record with FPS's that they do with RPG's.

Given how crappy RAGE ran on PC, (Jesus that pop-in!!! Those blurry textures!!!! ARGH... my EYES!!!), I would rather Gamebryo be used given a choice between the two, though some heavy tweaking would be in order.

Too bad New Vegas wasn't developed by Bethesda huh? That was an Obsidian game, and oddly enough many of the original team members from Fallout 1 and 2 work at Obsidian currently.